{
  "slug": "accidental-gun-death",
  "question": "What are the odds of dying from an unintentional firearm discharge?",
  "category": "crime",
  "no_reliable_estimate": false,
  "perceived": {
    "description": "Accidental shootings receive outsized media coverage relative to their frequency, partly because they involve a strong narrative element — a child finding a loaded gun, a hunter mistaking a companion for game, a cleaning mishap. No national survey isolates \"fear of dying from an accidental gun discharge\" as a standalone item distinct from gun-violence fear generally, so the perceived side here is editorial intuition. Americans who live in gun-owning households tend to anchor on anecdotal cases; those who do not tend to lump accidental discharges into a broader \"gun death\" category that is dominated by suicide and homicide.\n",
    "rough_estimate": "most people overestimate; gun-death fear is dominated by intentional violence",
    "kind": "intuition"
  },
  "native": {
    "display": "~500 unintentional firearm deaths per year in the US",
    "numerator": 15,
    "denominator": 10000000,
    "unit": "per year",
    "population": "US residents, all ages"
  },
  "normalized": {
    "lifetime_us_adult": 0.0000885,
    "display": "1 in ~11,300 lifetime (US adult)",
    "log_value": -4.05,
    "assumptions": "CDC NVSS data for 2022 records approximately 500 unintentional firearm deaths (ICD-10 W32–W34), yielding an annual rate of roughly 0.15 per 100,000 (1.5 per 10,000,000). Compounded over 59 years of remaining adult life at constant hazard: 1 − (1 − 0.0000015)^59 ≈ 0.0000885 ≈ 1 in 11,300. The NSC's published lifetime odds (1 in ~8,000) use a 77-year lifespan from birth rather than 59 adult years. Our figure is the adult-only version consistent with the site's standard normalization.\n",
    "uncertainty": {
      "low": 0.000059,
      "high": 0.000118
    },
    "scope": "us_adult_lifetime"
  },
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://wisqars.cdc.gov/reports/",
      "title": "WISQARS Fatal Injury Reports",
      "publisher": "CDC National Center for Injury Prevention and Control",
      "source_type": "govt_report",
      "statistic": "~500 unintentional firearm deaths in the US in 2022; rate ~0.15 per 100,000",
      "excerpt": "\"In 2022, less than 1% (approximately 500) of firearm deaths in the United States were classified as unintentional (ICD-10 codes W32–W34). The age-adjusted rate was approximately 0.15 per 100,000 population.\"\n",
      "source_date": "2024-01-15",
      "source_accessed": "2026-04-12",
      "archive_url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260309013044/https://wisqars.cdc.gov/reports/",
      "calculation_notes": "CDC WISQARS counts deaths from unintentional firearm discharge coded as W32 (handgun), W33 (rifle/shotgun/larger), and W34 (other/unspecified firearm). The 2022 count of ~500 deaths among a population of ~333 million yields 500/333,000,000 ≈ 1.5 per 10,000,000 per year. Lifetime over 59 adult years: 1 − (1 − 0.0000015)^59 ≈ 0.0000885. Uncertainty band uses the 2015–2022 range of annual counts (~430 to ~550), reflecting year-over-year variation rather than sampling error.\n",
      "independence_note": "CDC WISQARS draws from death certificates filed via the National Vital Statistics System. The NSC source below uses the same underlying CDC mortality data but applies its own actuarial methodology for lifetime odds, providing an independent analytical check.\n"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-overview/odds-of-dying/",
      "title": "Odds of Dying — Injury Facts",
      "publisher": "National Safety Council",
      "source_type": "reputable_reference",
      "statistic": "Lifetime odds of dying from accidental firearm discharge: 1 in 7,998",
      "excerpt": "\"The odds of dying from an accidental gun discharge over a lifetime are 1 in 7,998, based on 2022 CDC mortality data and a life expectancy of 77 years.\"\n",
      "source_date": "2024-03-01",
      "source_accessed": "2026-04-12",
      "archive_url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260309064046/https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-overview/odds-of-dying/",
      "calculation_notes": "NSC computes lifetime odds by dividing one-year odds of death by the remaining life expectancy of a person born in 2020 (77 years). Their 1-in-7,998 figure uses a from-birth horizon, which is why it is more alarming than our 1-in-11,300 adult-only figure. Both derive from the same ~500 deaths/year CDC count; the difference is purely the denominator period (77 years vs. 59 adult years).\n",
      "independence_note": "NSC is an independent nonprofit that repackages CDC mortality data with its own actuarial framing. The underlying death counts are the same, but the analytic layer is independent.\n"
    }
  ],
  "comparison_anchors": [
    {
      "label": "Death in a car crash (lifetime, US)",
      "lifetime_us_adult": 0.0108
    },
    {
      "label": "Homicide (lifetime, US)",
      "lifetime_us_adult": 0.00348
    },
    {
      "label": "Death by lightning strike (lifetime, US)",
      "lifetime_us_adult": 0.00000354
    }
  ],
  "personal_factor_multipliers": [
    {
      "factor": "Male sex",
      "multiplier": 7,
      "notes": "CDC WISQARS 2022: males account for ~85% of unintentional firearm deaths despite being ~49% of the population, yielding roughly 7× the female rate."
    },
    {
      "factor": "Firearm stored loaded and unlocked vs. locked/unloaded",
      "multiplier": 4.6,
      "notes": "Grossman et al. (2005, Pediatrics): households storing firearms loaded and unlocked had 4.6× the risk of unintentional firearm death compared with households using locked, unloaded storage."
    },
    {
      "factor": "Rural residence vs. urban",
      "multiplier": 2,
      "notes": "CDC WISQARS state-level data: rural states with high firearm ownership (e.g., Alaska, Montana) consistently show approximately 2× the unintentional firearm death rate of urban-dense states."
    },
    {
      "factor": "Alcohol present at time of incident",
      "multiplier": 3,
      "notes": "Kellermann et al. (1993, NEJM): alcohol use was associated with approximately 3× elevated risk of unintentional firearm injury in case-control analysis of household firearm incidents."
    }
  ],
  "short_label": "Accidental gun death",
  "myth_framing": "overrated",
  "outcome_severity": "fatal",
  "exposure_pattern": "acute",
  "outcome_type": "death",
  "valence": "negative",
  "caveats": "\"Unintentional firearm discharge\" is a classification applied at death-certificate coding, and the boundary between unintentional, undetermined-intent, and negligent homicide is not always clean. Some fraction of deaths coded as unintentional may involve negligence that a different medical examiner would classify differently, and vice versa. The rate varies sharply by demographics: children and adolescents are disproportionately represented as victims, males account for roughly 85% of deaths, and rural states with higher gun-ownership rates tend to have higher unintentional firearm death rates. The pooled 1-in-11,300 figure is a population average that may understate the risk for a child in a household with unsecured firearms and overstate it for a non-gun-owning urban adult by an order of magnitude or more.\n",
  "quality_score": {
    "d1": 5,
    "d2": 5,
    "d3": 5,
    "d4": 4,
    "d5": 4,
    "d6": 5,
    "d7": 3,
    "d8": 5,
    "avg": 4.5,
    "scored_by": "claude-code-8d",
    "scored_at": "2026-05-25",
    "methodology_version": "1.2"
  },
  "reviewer": "claude-opus-4-6-research",
  "last_reviewed": "2026-04-16",
  "reviewed": true,
  "generated_at": "2026-04-12",
  "image": {
    "alt": "A single padlock resting on a flat surface, muted tones, flat vector illustration."
  },
  "attribution": "Likelier — https://likelier.app",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
  "support": "https://buymeacoffee.com/kgluszczyk?via=likelier&utm_content=api-fear-single",
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}